I want to gift my mom and stepdad a cruise out of Port Carnival for Christmas. Looking just at the web sites directly (Carnival and NCL) I see a balcony for a week in March goes for about $2000.

I am trying to estimate what extras might be. I already have an idea of the (non-trivial!) cost of caring for their menagerie of pets while they are gone might be. It's the cruise-related costs.

From what I gather I should account for the costs of parking at the port, port fees and tax (though I think, maybe, that's in my $2000 estimate), drinks of any sort, extra dining options, tips, spa treatments, any room service, shore excursions, and what else am I forgetting?

I am thinking that doubling the cost of the cruise should surely cover things, but I'm not sure. The best I can guesstimate is:

* $150 in tips
* $120 in parking
* $400 in shore excursions
* $250 in spa treatments
* $700 in food/drink/dining upgrades

Do these sound anywhere near reasonable numbers?

Your question is difficult because different people will spend on different items- I have been on 6 cruises and have never spent dollar one in the Spa--but if you parents are "spa" people and are interested in various crackpot "treatments" is possible to spend $1000 or more in a seven day cruise. Your tip allocation looks right (auto tip is usually about $11 per day per person), but the bar tab could be much higher or lower than you estimate.

Cruising with my husband, he might have two cocktails in the evening- averaging about $9 each. I might have a glass wine ($6 for house wine or $ for moderate selection). Specialty dining ranges from $15-$35 per person dependent on venue and cruise line.

For details of NCL or Carnival costs, you should check out the cruisecritic.com forums-- I believe complete bar menus and wine lists (with prices) are posted there.

You didn't ask this, but if I had a $2000 cruise budget for a 1 week carribean cruise, I don't think I would choose Carnival or NCL. If you parents are willing to depart from Tampa, Fort Lauderdale or Miami, you can get a balcony cabin on Holland America, Princess or Celebrity for the same cost. These lines are generally considered to be a step up from Carnival or NCL with better quality food, better service and nicer cabins.

Very much agree.

As to the 'extras' query IMHO the shore excursions seem a tad low as I just booked mine yesterday for an upcoming Holland America Eurodam sailing in Jan. and spent $286 for 4, though granted there was a slightly more expensive Discover Scuba in Grand Turk. Everyone is different and while your folks may not do as many organized tours FWIW since you asked I'd add a little more to the shore excursions estimate, say around $500-$600 total for both. Just MHO, of course.

Experiences vary greatly for this, but your estimates shouldn't be too far off. The big costs are in alcohol, casino and spa purchases. Excursions will be about $100 plus or minus per person per excursion. My typical cruise bill is $1000 for the week for two people, plus what what we spend on shore and getting to/from the ship. This is based on four cruises in the past five years.

As a surprise, pre-pay some type of "welcome aboard" package Have it delivered to their room 30 minutes after the ship leaves port

We sent a champagne package to my brother and his wife on their anniversary cruise Of course, we didn't tell them it was coming until the basket just showed up They couldn't stop talking about it

Or you can pre pay a bottle of wine for a dinner, or one of the shore excursions

The cruise line will help you pick something appropriate

I would increase food/drink/dining to at least $1000. Alcohol is very pricey and your mom/stepdad may want to eat at some of the restaurants sometimes instead of the main dining hall.

Thanks for the responses! I do have to make sure they still want to go on a cruise first, but this will help in my estimations immensely, for picking up the tab.

I'll look into cruisecritic and other cruise lines from Tampa. They live in Orlando and don't think they want to drive overly far, but Tampa is not all that much further than Cape Canavarel. I'm just trying to come up with some reasonably similar (price-wise) options.

Tampa is a fantastic port to cruise out of! The drive from Orlando is easy and getting to the port easy. Parking is $14 a day.

Carnival, Royal caribbean, and Holland America both cruise from Tampa so you should be able to find something that fits.

http://www.tampaport.com/Business-Opportunities/Cruise

Unless they are very heavy drinkers or high priced wine consumers, I think this too high. Dinner for two ranges is typically $50 (Tamerind on HAL is lower at $30 for 2, the Carnival high end restaurant is $70 for two, HAL's $40 charge for 2 at The Pinnacle Grill is typical). The cruise lines being discussed all offer multiple free dining options-- a main dining room, a buffet, a grill by the pool, etc. I can't imagine wanting to eat in the specialty restaurant more than an absolute max of 3 times in a week-- it is just too time consuming and too much food!

I second that particularly since these are "parent age" people who may prefer the quieter, more traditional atmosphere of Holland America ships and their better and larger cabins. That seems like a lot of money for extra dining expenses. Main dining room food on Holland America ships is quite good and we found little to no reason to go to their extra charge dining room. ($20)

Shore excursions tend to be the biggest costs as many ports have little on their own to offer or are not even safe to do on your own in the Caribbean. So this is a place to critically look for cost differences because a loss-leader cruise price with expensive shore excursions is in the final analysis no bargain.

Again, we have been pleased with the quality and choice of Holland America shore excursions so that ends up being our only extra besides some extra beverage charges and our own personal indulgences in the shops which is entirely discretionary. I think the initial value of the Holland America basic price is high for overall satisfaction without having to add a lot of extras to make a trip more enjoyable. (Except shore excursions)

Yikes, I think my last 7 day cruise the bill at the end for the two of us was about $450 (and we had about $200 in onboard credit, so the final bill was about $250).

Figure that includes tips, plus 2-3 drinks a day for each of us. Plus on that cruise my wife did the Chef's table dining, which was $75 in and of itself. Other than that, we don't generally do any of the specialty restaurants. (Obviously a heavier drinker would spend more of course.)

No cruise line excursions on that one, think we spent $150 for a snorkeling trip in St Thomas, and about $80 for golf cart rental in Grand Turk, that'd be in addition to the above.

Personally, I think the largest onboard bill I've had was the 2 week Amazon to FLL cruise, that ended up being just over $2k I think (plus we had a $300 independent excursion in Manaus). Course, part of the reason that one was so expensive is because it included a $950 piece of art and $200 or so for the navigational chart, so it was significantly higher than our usual bill.

Your estimates seem OK for a 7 day cruise depending on how many of the extras your parent opt for.

Just my 2 cents but you may want to look at other cruise lines. My preferences are Celebrity and Princess.

Point taken. I forgot the cruise was only 1 week and was basing my number off my experience with a 12 day cruise. OP's estimate of $700 is probably ok.

I love the balcony and spend much of the cries - day and night there. I have a camping hammock that I sling up and sleep in, etc.

That being said, I know a lot of people who are never in their room, but use it for sleep only. They always get the inside room. So, decide what type your parents are.

Sounds crazy, but AARP did a poll awhile back and found the Disney ship high, even for those without grandkids. No casino and service is tops

Cool present

I am grateful to cruisers like you, so the cruise lines continue to keep the base fares low.

We do not spend much in "upgraded dining experiences" and usually do our excursions on our own, be it totally DIY or using independent tour companies or simply negotiated prices at the pier with local taxi drivers such as what we did at Lisbon and Gibraltar.

We often wound up with credit balances in our shipboard accounts that we use the "player account" method at the casino to flip the credit balance to cash.

The shipboard credits from future cruise credit, agency credit and Carnival shareholder credit all are combinable and usually more than enough to settle all the debit entries on our accounts including the daily auto-tips. In our past 6 cruises we left the ship with anywhere $70 to $150 CASH back to our pockets due to our inability to spend the total shipboard credit we got on a typical 10 to 16 day cruises.